Basic Job Cost Settings

If your database does not already have the following settings, make these changes in the MSS> departments tab> cost projection sub-tab> for each department. This will give you a basic setup that will cover most types of jobs. 

• Decide what your default target gross profit % should be and enter it. For example, Constructions jobs are usually looking for a 50% profit margin and disaster jobs look for an 80% profit margin. These ratios can be further customize in the job file on a job by job basis.
• Set the Total Cost Projected column to departmental target profit%.
• Set the Project Sub/Material costs column to Purchase Orders.
• Set the Project Labor Costs column to Total projections minus sub/mat/inventory projection. 

With this setup, the calculations will run every time you enter a sold price, add a purchase order amount if needed, or add a supplement. Once this is setup, you do not ever need to revisit these settings unless you want to start using Chronicle’s Budget feature as a basis for projections. This will be addressed in another article and is for more advanced users.

Here is what each setting means:

• Targeted Gross Profit %: Each department or trade will have a target of how much you wish to make on any given job. This setting is a default and is used in the initial calculation. Individual jobs can have different gross profit ratios which are set in the job file. Use setting such as Construction set to 50% and DR jobs to 80%.
• Inventory Burden: You could add inventory manually in the job file item by item or you can set a percent here that will simply be subtracted from the gross profit. Or leave this set to 0.
• Set the Total Costs Projected From column to the Departmental Target Profit % setting. This setting controls what is placed in the total expected cost and projected cost % fields found in the job file. These costs are the inversion of the target gross profit % that you chose for each department.
• Set the Project Sub/Material Costs From column to the Purchase Orders This tells the program to go and look at what amounts you entered on the purchase orders tab in the job file.
• Set the Project Labor Costs From column to the Total projection minus sub/mat/inventory projection This setting does exactly what it says it does.